On Wednesday 27th February 2019, the Be Exhibitions team went along to International Confex at London Olympia. This is a show for the event and exhibition industry and provided a great opportunity to network , see what’s new in the industry and see what’s being discussed.

There were some fantastic stands, suppliers and venues all advertising what they are capable of and some of the options available to us and our clients. Everything from AV, giveaways all the way through to the hotels with the comfiest beds; something for everyone could be seen at Confex.

However, our drive was to see the 14:00 seminar at the Keynote Theatre, titled: How to make the events industry sustainable. With the panel made up of Paddy Power, Joe Atkinson and Neils Temmerman; each brought their own argument and opinion to the sustainability argument. However, one thing is very clear is that our industry is simply not doing enough to combat the impact that we have on our environment.

A lot needs to change but across the whole customer chain. Exhibitors need to be more demanding of their stand builders and stand builders in turn need to be more demanding of organisers. We’re quite aware of the impact that the industry has and try do make a small change (and it is small) by planting trees to offset the carbon produced in making a stand. It does feel somewhat arbitrary though and our commitment this year will be to look at how we can contribute even more to sustainable exhibiting.